There's nothing complicated about the internet. In fact, it's a step back in time.

When you use it to promote or extend your business you're returning to an older way of selling. If you'd been pushing your product or service a few hundred years ago, you'd have gone to the market place and shouted until you were hoarse. You'd have taken your business right to the consumer.

That's exactly what the internet can do for you: deliver your message to the market place clearly, simply and, weighing the costs against the benefits, cheaply. Except now the market place covers the whole world.

Sure, it's crowded, and you have to work hard to make yourself heard, but it's a return to a purer form of selling.

This may not be obvious if you're running a small business. You already have a lot to think about. Setting up an online presence and - maybe - getting involved in e-commerce can seem too complicated to bother thinking about.

For many businesses technology means cutting costs, improving process efficiency and getting close to your customers and suppliers. The internet has without doubt helped in achieving these goals, whether through online trading or extranets and intranets.

But there are three reasons why you should consider having a web presence, no matter how small your business.

First, if you have a business you have a brand. This may seem ridiculous, but it's true: your brand is the sum of what people know about you and what you do. Having a strong brand will help you win new customers.

So even if you run a small plumbing or electrical outfit, a website can help - you can use it to post information about the way you work and what you charge.

Even better, you can describe past projects and include testimonials. A simple 'brochureware' site can be set up and maintained very cheaply: a few hundred pounds will buy one that looks great.

Second, the web can expand your business as well as your market. If you run a coffee shop you might consider launching a website for the branding reasons outlined above. While the site's there, why not make it earn its keep by setting up simple ecom- merce? Customers visit your shop and note the web address on the crockery or the napkins.

Later, out of interest, they visit your website. What do they find? The opportunity to buy mugs, grinders, coffee makers, exotic beans and branded T-shirts. The internet is a cheap way to diversify.

Third, customers have expectations. They expect to be able to email you rather than call. If you run any kind of business larger than a whelk stall, they expect a website.

If you don't have one, you can bet the biggest pile of whelks you have that your competitors soon will - and you'll soon start to lose out to them.

Although not every business necessarily needs to trade online to remain competitive, presence on the worldwide web is becoming increasingly important.

Those companies who keep their heads in the sand and say: 'I've been fine until now without the web, so why change?' forget the fact that, with every day that passes, their web-wise competitors will be eating away at their market share. There is no such thing as a local or regional market any more!

You can buy whatever you want on the internet from businesses at the other end of the country, or the other side of the world.

In addition, the resulting cost reductions and improved customer satisfaction which results form a successful e-business solution is immeasurable.

There is no one way to put a website together.

Which one is right for you depends entirely on what you want to achieve with your website, your budget (of course) and how the website fits in with your overall business and marketing strategies.